Advertising agencies, "clipping" services, photographic studios and various other businesses frequently need to cut photographs, advertisements, coupons or other items from paper or similar material such as foil. In some instances it may be necessary or desirable for material within the interior portion of the sheet to be cut therefrom without impairing the integrity of the border of the sheet. Manually performing the cutting operations by use of conventional scissors or knives is tedious and time consuming, and may result in less than satisfactory results such as the formation of ragged or crooked edges.
Certain industrial-type machines are capable of cutting uniform rectangular or other polygonal shapes from the interior of sheet material. Illustrative of these machines are ones for mass-producing picture framing "mats" or passe partouts from cardboard or the like. However, these machines normally possess attributes rendering them less than satisfactory for small business or office use of the type hereinbefore described. They normally are quite expensive and large, and may be difficult and/or dangerous for an inexperienced person to operate. Adjustment of them, for the purpose of changing from a cutout of a first size to one of another size, may be difficult to effect. In most if not all the machines, this requires adjustment of the position of the cutting elements relative to the sheet, and also separate and independent adjustment of the length of the cuts to be made by the cutting elements. While the time required for realization of the foregoing adjustments may not be an important consideration when one is concerned with machines that mass-produce large numbers of mats or the like of standard sizes, it can be a very important consideration when one is dealing with cutouts of many different sizes and limited quantities.